Carter's short story "'Congenital Agenesis of Gender Ideation' by K.N. Sirsi and Sandra Botkin"[2] was shortlisted for the Theodore Sturgeon Award and won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 1998.[3] This makes Carter the first non-female to be the sole winner of the Tiptree (Elizabeth Hand in 1995 was a co-winner with Theodore Roszak); Carter reportedly "does not identify as male or female"[4] and wrote the "Androgyny Rarely Asked Questions"[5] and "The Murk Manual: How to Understand Medical Writing on Intersex".[6]

Between May 1998 and April 2002, Carter maintained the Honeyguide Web Log[7] - an "eclectic weekly list of links emphasizing books, robotics, and the natural sciences."[8] This was the first site to be named a weblog after Jorn Barger's example, and Carter launched the first weblog directory at the Open Directory Project in November 1998.[9]